Avoiding middle-class planning 2.0: media arts and the future of urban planning

This dissertation chronicles the role of media arts in urban planning as an essential part of contemporary economic development, real estate branding, and participatory socially engaged arts projects. Through three case studies runs the conceptual through-line, “Middle-Class Planning 2.0,” the digital age’s extension of the last century’s class-based planning and urban development regime that has consistently favored elite interests over socially just, inclusionary practices. The introduction presents the historical and cultural contexts that lead to the larger research question: What are “media arts”? What can they offer urban planners? Assuming that planning does have an elitist middle-class agenda, how do digital technologies relate to it, and what can planners do to avoid a Middle-Class Planning 2.0? ❧ The first case study constitutes an examination of media arts organizations (MAOs) in the United States. Do MAOs share a relationship with neighborhood change? Results suggest that media arts organizations as a sector do not correlate with gentrification, but may locate within already changing communities, those already undergoing redevelopment. Further and critically, organizational mission, or institutional agenda, successfully predicts a media arts organization’s relationship to neighborhood change. This finding emphasizes institutional intent’s relevance, as well as asserts the need to study just more than art sectors in order to understand culture’s intersection with neighborhood change. ❧ The second analysis examines how real estate developers use online marketing campaigns to promote their projects. Despite this growing trend, planning scholarship does not yet evaluate how developers use media, or the implications for developer-driven community development in the digital age. Through a bimonthly content analysis of two major adaptive reuse projects’ emergent and social media campaigns, I find online real estate development marketing is different than its pre-digital predecessor, possibly hearkening a “neo-growth machine.” Multi-media coalesce both to create a new media-rich rhetoric of representation that supports innovative marketing initiatives, as well as reveal critical exposure. All processes disclose the same goal: exclusive, twenty-first century spectacle- and disparity-driven development. I argue planners should study developers’ mediated messaging to (1) recognize their manipulations and (2) invert their savvy but cynical practices into pro-participatory planning ones. ❧ The final case study represents just that kind of participatory planning program. In 2011, Out the Window collaborators presented videos by youth and local artists on Los Angeles buses, engaging riders in SMS-enabled dialogues. Findings from the surveyed and interviewed riders are presented as part of a conceptual analysis of the project as an example of de Certeauian practice in the digital age. Though hindered by institutional obstacles, Out the Window demonstrates a positive role for media arts in planning communications and participation, specifically the possible creation of “active consumers,” citizens who can effectuate change from the bottom-up through media-based storytelling. ❧ The dissertation concludes: institution matters, power endures, and while media provide a valuable and qualitatively rich venue for engaging with marginalized urban populations, the first and second conditions persist. Therefore, if we hope to achieve a “Democratic Planning 1.0,” planning should: teach critical visual and media literacies, use art and technology for participation’s sake, demand public uses from public screens, devise culturally sensitive outreach campaigns, focus on mission, and embrace paradox.

本博士论文系统梳理了媒体艺术在城市规划中的核心角色——其作为当代经济发展、房地产品牌建设以及参与式社会介入艺术项目的关键组成部分。本研究以三个案例研究为支撑，贯穿核心概念主线“中产阶级规划2.0”（Middle-Class Planning 2.0），这一概念是数字时代对上个世纪基于阶级的规划与城市发展体制的延伸，该体制一贯偏向精英群体利益，而非践行社会公平与包容性发展理念。绪论部分阐述了本研究的历史与文化语境，并引出三大核心研究问题：何为“媒体艺术”？媒体艺术能够为城市规划者提供何种价值？若规划领域确实存在精英主义中产阶级议程，那么数字技术与此议程存在何种关联？规划者又当如何规避“中产阶级规划2.0”的陷阱？
❧ 首个案例研究聚焦美国的媒体艺术组织（Media Arts Organizations, MAOs），探讨此类组织与社区变迁是否存在关联。研究结果显示，作为行业板块的媒体艺术组织并未与绅士化（gentrification）进程呈现显著相关性，但它们往往选址于已处于变迁进程中的社区，即已启动再开发的区域。更具批判性的是，组织使命或机构议程能够有效预判媒体艺术组织与社区变迁的关联模式。这一发现既强调了机构意图的重要性，也指明：若要理解文化与社区变迁的交叉互动，不应仅局限于艺术行业的研究范畴。
❧ 第二项分析聚焦房地产开发商如何借助线上营销活动推广其项目。尽管这一趋势日益凸显，但规划学界尚未就开发商如何运用媒体展开系统性研究，也未探讨数字时代开发商主导的社区发展所蕴含的深层影响。本研究通过对两个大型适应性再开发（adaptive reuse）项目的新兴媒体与社交媒体营销活动进行双月内容分析，发现线上房地产开发营销模式与数字时代前的传统模式存在显著差异，或预示着“新增长机器”（neo-growth machine）的出现。多元媒介融合不仅构建出充满媒体元素的新型表征修辞，为创新型营销活动提供支撑，同时也暴露出关键的传播面向。所有这些过程均指向同一目标：21世纪排他性、以景观营造与贫富差距为驱动的开发模式。笔者认为，规划者应当研究开发商的媒介化信息传播，以达成两个核心目标：其一，识别其操纵性手段；其二，将这些精明却愤世嫉俗的运作模式，转化为有利于参与式规划的实践路径。
❧ 最后一项案例研究正是这类参与式规划项目的典范。2011年，“Out the Window”项目团队在洛杉矶公交系统投放青年与本地艺术家创作的视频作品，并通过短信（Short Message Service, SMS）功能与乘客展开互动对话。本研究基于对受访乘客的调研与访谈结果，将该项目作为数字时代德塞托式（de Certeauian）实践的典型案例展开概念性分析。尽管该项目受到体制性障碍的制约，但“Out the Window”仍展现出媒体艺术在规划传播与公众参与中的积极作用，特别是其有可能培育出“主动受众”——即能够通过基于媒体的叙事自下而上推动社会变革的公民群体。
本论文最终得出如下结论：机构因素至关重要，权力结构依旧稳固；尽管媒体为与城市边缘群体开展互动提供了极具价值且内涵丰富的载体，但前述两种现状依然存在。因此，若我们期望实现“民主规划1.0”（Democratic Planning 1.0），规划领域应当做到：教授批判性视觉与媒体素养、以公众参与为导向运用艺术与技术、要求公共屏幕服务于公共用途、制定具有文化敏感性的外联推广活动、聚焦组织使命，并接纳辩证矛盾。